Skinny Love
by poetryismyfirstlove
Summary: AU. It was forbidden for doctors to fall in love with their patients. But they still loved each other though nothing would come of it. The odds were never in their favor in the first place. M for dark themes.
1. Chapter 1

1

Every 8th day of May each year since it happened, I lose more of myself, or my mind, whichever term is more correct because almost none of the old me is left anyway.

The real world is just an echo of the past I once belonged to when I was someone and was still clinically sane. Not that I am fully insane now. This isn't crazy. This is me coping. I just have these episodes where I'm not all in my head most of the time. I have a problem grasping what's real and what's not. I'm mostly revisiting the past, and her, and dreaming of another present and future, of how things could have ended differently.

I can't allow myself to regret because I don't think she has any. But I miss her. And the emptiness doesn't get easier each year; it just gets longer. If a mathematical equation could be used to explain what I feel then imagine the emptiness and missing her to diminish in half-life each year. You'd be duped to think it gets smaller and smaller by half and that's better but actually it lasts longer by infinite halves.

In my head, I go back to 10 years when we first met.

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_I was Dr. Peeta Mellark, a first year Psychiatry resident at one of the upscale mental institute in the Capitol. I studied Medicine from a distinguished school and graduated at the upper 10__th__ percentile of my class._

_Others tease me for taking up Psychiatry saying it was a pansy course, nothing really medical about it, just talking bullshit, sitting around couches and prescribing bogus drugs. That it wasn't as concrete and solid as Internal medicine or Surgery but full of the abstract, crazy and unpredictable._

_But maybe that was what attracted me to it. The study of the mind and human behavior seemed like a good way to study life itself. _

_In my first year, I was tasked to do daily rounds of patients, noting their activities and mood for the day. If they were showing signs of improvement or were falling deeper into their neuroses. _

_Since I was new, I was mostly assigned to the easy cases- delusions, eating disorders, bipolars, substance abuse, schizophrenics. As we gain experience and knowledge, we get to handle more difficult cases - depressive disorders with suicidal tendencies, schizophrenics with violent streaks, multiple personality disorders, sexual disorders and the other high profile cases. _

_In my second year of residency, after a particularly harrowing conversation with a teenage boy who claims his thoughts and actions were broadcasted in the internet, (which seems oddly synonymous to every social networking site to me except they weren't directly transmitted from his brain nor do they include dirty conversations with a girl named Joanna), I went to the walled garden at the back of the building, and sat on a bench under the shade of a tree._

_I was feeling sorry for the teenage boy named Finnick, how he was losing his mind at a young age and how he would depend on drugs for most of his life, when I heard someone speak._

_"__I love the sun." She said her voice melodious._

_I turned to my left and saw a frail looking girl in a white dress with dark hair falling past her shoulders standing under a stream of sunlight. She was quite pale and thin but it did not deduct from the fact that she was still the prettiest girl I've seen. I could only imagine how she must have looked more beautiful before. _

_Before what I wonder? She had dark circles under her eyes with hollowed out cheeks and the body of someone who was clearly underweight. _

_I had the impression that she must be another patient with an eating disorder, when I saw our chief consultant, Dr. Abernathy arriving with the owner of the hospital, Mr. Everdeen. She went to them and they left together. _

_It was then that I remembered the whispers of the hospital staff about the hospital being built for the daughter of the owner._


	2. Chapter 2

_2_

_It was after another week when I saw her again. By this time I already know her name and her diagnosis, the rumors and what was exactly written in her confidential files. Katniss Everdeen, age 24, Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. She had been in and out of the hospital for the last 6 years._

_It was noted in her file that she developed OCD to cleanliness when she was 18 when she tried to scrub herself almost raw saying she was dirty. Later on, she'd take an hour and a half bathing, another hour to wash after answering the call of nature and about 10 minutes just washing her hands after touching something. She demanded her things to always be sterilized. _

_And after that, she developed anorexia when she refused to eat to avoid her bowel movement, which she considered dirty. She also refused to sleep without a light on saying darkness was dirty. One incident happened where she panicked and lit the room on fire when the lights suddenly went out. _

_I see the reason not to eat but I don't know what triggered her aversion to dirt. She always stayed at the top suite, always dressed in white, in an all-white room with the furnishings all-white cleaned daily by professional cleaners. A side of the wall was all-glass allowing sunlight to filter in. She barely ate, only a nibble or a bite but the most she takes in are her meds, some vitamins and water._

_The others only know her as the bratty heiress so vain she became anorexic and so haughty she hated dirt. But I knew there was something more. So when I was assigned to do my daily rounds with her, I was almost excited._

_As expected, she was far from what the rumors say about her. She didn't speak crazy like the others I'm used to. She was very pleasant to talk to and was sensible. She even complimented me for my clean white shirt and coat._

_She admitted to being used to being alone most of the time as she was an only child but she had cousins when she was younger. She hated the idea of living in a hospital but she loved her room here, all white and sterile and filled with sunlight. She loved sunlight because she hated the dark, because darkness reminded her of dirty things. Sunlight made her feel safe. She knew she was sick and she needed help. She loved her family that was why she was doing this. _

_I told her that it's okay to be alone as long as she's not feeling lonely. I told her that living in the hospital is not that bad as most residents like myself, almost don't get to go home during the course of our training and practically live at the hospital. I also told her that her room was nice but could use a bit more color. And it was nice to know that she was aware of her sickness and that she wants to get well because she loves her family. Before I left, I told her I'll be seeing her everyday to talk._

_But what I didn't say was that I knew she was hiding something. If she grew up with cousins where were they and why were they not visiting? And what the hell happened in the dark?_

_Notes about her throughout the years, did not contain this information about her aversion to darkness being related to her distaste of dirt. Although it stated that she had a falling out with her cousins when she was 18 mostly because she started having her OC episodes. I'm not sure if the residents before me were lazy or they were protecting her family or if Katniss never told them. _

_Either way, I know I'm not through getting to know her. To fix a problem, you have to get to its root. I was doing this so I can help her. Because someone as beautiful as her doesn't belong in a cage no matter how pretty and clean it was._


	3. Chapter 3

_Everyday, I would have my sessions with her. We mostly talk about general topics, her interests, books she have read. She talks less that sometimes, I find myself volunteering to speak or answering my own questions first. _

_If we were friends, it wouldn't be a problem but we were in a patient – physician relationship so blurred lines are a definite no. But I was foolhardy trying to gain her trust to talk to me about something personal about her that I didn't realize I was putting out too much of myself._

_It was in the next few months that we had more personal and meaningful conversations. We were doing the If questions._

_I asked her "If you could do something else, what would it be?"_

_She was quiet so I don't know whether she was thinking or ignoring me so I decided to volunteer an answer. "If I weren't doctor, I'd probably be a baker."_

_She looked at me oddly probably imagining me as some type of cook._

_"__I used to help out in my family's bakery back in highschool and occasionally when I was on a break in college. I was rather good at frosting cookies and decorating cakes but I always wanted to help people and make a change in someone's life. Anyway, becoming a doctor would do that for me so it won in the end so here I am." I said._

_"__You're lucky to be able to do what you love. I don't know what I want. But I know I don't want this." She gestured at herself and at the room, meaning her sickness. "I just want to live, truly live you know? Not just existing. Maybe then, I'd find something worth my life." _

_My insticts were telling me I was right about her having unresolved issues._

_"__If you could be anything what do you want to be?"_

_"__When I was younger my daddy called me his little star but stars only come out at night so what's the point? A bird maybe, so I could fly away from here." she said, shrugging her shoulders._

_ "__But the sun is a star." I pointed out._

_She was still and then her face lit up with a genuine smile, the first I have ever seen of her. Suddenly, she looked younger and more beautiful, as if she was before she was sick. It was brief but it should have been enough to cast alarm bells in my mind._

_"__Thank you." She said. "I think you're a sun too."_


	4. Chapter 4

_It was something not supposed to happen; something taboo and forbidden. _

_It was never spoken between us nor did we try to even touch hands but it was always there hanging in the air between us everyday when we would have our sessions. It was in the little things- her eyes looking away from me, a sigh escaping my lips, her hands clasping and unclasping, my starch white coat just a little whiter than usual, the press of her tongue on her lips, and the sunlight streaming between us. _

_Patients are not supposed to fall in love with their doctors nor doctors with their patients. The consequences alone were frightening. _

_I only have less than a year left before I finish residency and I was thinking maybe after that I'll tell her, I love her. She deserves to know how much. I'm not sure how much she feels for me. I don't even know if we could work out being together. I'm not even thinking if something like that will sit well with her family and all. For now, I was intent on helping her and finding the reason for her sickness._

_It was sometime later, when Katniss volunteered to speak without being asked, that I learned the reason why._

_"__My cousin Gale Hawthorne is getting married." She said holding an invitation._

_"__Then congratulations to him then. Are you happy for him?" I said._

_"__It was an arranged marriage." She curtly replied._

_"__Were your parents also hoping to marry you off that way?" I asked cautiously._

_"__No, my father loves me way too much to do that to me. And I know Gale will be the first to oppose. Anyway, I don't think I'm meant to be anyone's wife." She said, smiling bitterly._

_"__How do you know?" I asked curious._

_"__Because." She said, not really explaining anything._

_"__Was Gale one of the cousins you grew up with?" I then asked._

_She nodded in reply. "We grew up in the same house since his parents were almost always away and they would leave him with us. He was like my big brother and I loved him." She finished in a tone that caught my attention._

_I saw Katniss clasping and unclasping her hands like she does when she's nervous only it's not because of me this time. It's about Gale. Something tells me there's more to the story than just that. If they were close then where was he when Katniss was sick?_

_"__What happened to him? Where is he now?" I probed._

_Katniss seemed to be staring into space, lost in deep thought. "We sort of grew apart. He changed and wanted other things. Then I got sick."_

_I felt close to finding out the truth. "What did he want Katniss?" I prompted her to continue._

_"__It was dark and he... he wanted..."_

_I knew it even before it even escaped her lips._

_I was holding Katniss in my arms, asking her not to cry and wiping away her tears. She was broken and no one knew, not her family, whom she loved and was protecting from her secret. _

_She was looking at me seeking reassurance. She was broken, but she was still beautiful. Nothing could change what I feel for her. _

_I was angry at Gale for exploiting her love and trust, angry at what happened to her afterwards when she punished herself, and just plain angry that there's not much I can do for the girl I love except hold her._

_If Katniss wanted to get better then she should start by forgiving herself for what happened and stop punishing herself for something she didn't deserve. _

_Later on, she started eating again, just a little but I know it was an effort for her. Her father was happy with her improvement. But she hasn't told him yet and she made me promise not to. _

_As her doctor, I wouldn't tell her father but as her friend and someone who loves her, I think her father should know. We were no longer just in a physician – patient relationship, nor in the comfort of a friendship/ confidante status. I don't know what we were but I knew we were more._


	5. Chapter 5

_Then May 8__th__ happened._

_I was finishing off my rounds with other patients before I went to her room. It was her birthday and I wanted to surprise her with a cake I baked designed with katniss flowers. _

_I heard shouting inside and glass breaking. I tried to open her door but it was locked. I fished for her extra key in my pocket to open it and saw Katniss standing a few feet away from a man I've never met before. _

_Katniss was standing by the glass wall which was broken with the chair hurled into it. Across from her was a man who without introduction I know would be named Gale. He had a crazed look in his eyes not unlike my many psychotic patients. But I knew what it was, desperation._

_He was shouting at Katniss. "I love you Katniss! I don't want to get married!" _

_I tried to move closer to Katniss until we formed a triangle. It was only when I was this near that I saw Gale holding a knife._

_He then turned to me abruptly. "Is it because of him?" He said pointing the knife at me from a distance._

_"__Leave him alone, Gale. You already know why." Katniss replied._

_"__I don't care if we're cousins! You loved me too before right?" He asked desperately._

_"__I did but only as a brother." She answered._

_"__But you knew I wanted more right? Even now, I love you still. Please don't make me marry that girl." He begged._

_"__You know exactly why I can't do that, Gale. There could never be more between us. What happened between us shouldn't have happened in the first place. Something I have tried over and over to forget." _

_"__Why because you're in love with him?" Gale sneered at my direction still holding the knife._

_"__No. I just want to move on and live normally again. You don't know how much I've been through. Dr. Mellark is just here to help me." She said glancing at me before looking down at the floor. _

_"__You're lying. I know you're lying. I'd kill him if you lie to me!" Gale said slowly inching my way. _

_I picked up a chair and put it in front of me to fend him off. I was beginning to feel powerless and unprepared in a situation like this. I was praying that the noise would attract the security to come. _

_"__I love you both in different ways and I don't want either of you to fight or die because of me. I'm just not worth it. I'll never be worth it." She said dejectedly._

_"__No you're not. You're worth more." I said catching Katniss's eyes. _

_"__I love you." I admitted. _

_I saw a brief spark in Katniss's eyes before they turned sad again. I did not want to confess this way, but I might as well. There's no telling what could happen and I might not get a chance again._

_"__So you love my Katniss too. Is that right?" Gale said, making me look back at him._

_"__Well, nobody loves my Katniss but me!" He said and lunged after me. _

_The knife blade caught in the chair and we struggled for a bit. Until he kicked me and I fell. I got up right away and tackled him. He was definitely bigger than me but I didn't want to go without a fight._

_We were rolling on the floor, hitting each other but he proved to be stronger than me. He was able to straddle me and pin me on the ground packing in the punches. I could feel every hit landing solidly on my jaw, cheek, brow and nose. It hurt everywhere, I could hardly see and I could taste blood. I could hear Katniss crying and screaming in the background._

_"__Stooop!" Katniss screamed and pushed Gale off me. _

_"__No more please. No more." She sobbed, her shoulders shaking._

_"__Then choose me Katniss." Gale pleaded. _

_"__I can't. I would only hurt one of you and I don't want to do that. I don't want to have regrets." She said through her tears._

_I remained lying on the floor, tired and in extreme pain. All I want was to close my eyes but I tried to listen to what Katniss was saying._

_"__If only my life could have turned out differently; if I could find something worth my life; if I knew how to love more." She continued her voice less shaky. _

_I wondered where Katniss was going with this, using Ifs like we did before. I stared at her with my swollen half-closed eyes._

_"__When I was sick, I learned one thing to be true. I love you sun." She said casting me a knowing look before standing up and dashing to the broken glass wall. _

_She was Icarus without wings, flying into the light. _


	6. Chapter 6

_None of the scenarios in my mind, offer the best end of how things should have ended. _

_If I had somehow killed Gale, I know Katniss wouldn't have wanted it. Not to mention I'd lose my license and be imprisoned. If Gale killed me, I know it would only break Katniss more but then maybe it will hurt Gale too. And if the security came, she'd be alive but their secret will be out and both Katniss and Gale will be broken, not to mention the scandal it would cause their family. And I'd never have a future with her._

_Maybe she chose the best end for us all. After all she was finally free of this place. _

_Her family accepted her decision, thinking that maybe things got too much for her. They did not blame me in anyway, in fact they were grateful I was there and sorry that I got involved._

_Gale did get his wish. His marriage got cancelled, owing to the fact that he was now also a patient in the hospital. They believed that he snapped because of the pressure brought on by his impending marriage and that he went to Katniss for help. _

_I did not correct their assumption. I just told them that you could never predict how emotionally unstable people would react to situations like how Gale lost it and attacked me and how Katniss did what she thought she had to do._

_Their family no longer needed to know what happened. Now that Katniss's no longer here, it wouldn't matter. The secret would only mar her memory. I want to be selfish for Katniss. Gale got what he deserved. He does not deserve forgiveness or any sort of peace of mind._

_But what do I deserve? Somehow, a life without her and a plague of memories does not seem fair to me._

_I could still hear Katniss's words echoing in my mind. These thoughts run through my head in endless loops._

_"__If only my life could have turned out differently; if I could find something worth my life; if I knew how to love more." _

_She used Ifs like we did before. Why would she use Ifs if she didn't want to have regrets? Was she trying to tell me something?_

_Maybe her life did turn out differently. Maybe she did find something worth her life. Maybe she learned how to love more._

_I was hoping I was able to give her that. That she got a shot at knowing how to live and love. It was just tragic that she died when she was just learning how to._

_And I wonder if by killing herself, did she leave me or choose me? Or were both the same, because she had to go so she could choose me? Was I as she put it, worth her life? _

_Only I couldn't ask her the truth because she carried it with her._

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* * *

I'm back again to the present. Only I don't want the present to be real.

I am wearing white, surrounded by a white room with white furnishings. A young man in a white coat is sitting across from me, asking me something I find unimportant. I ignored his question and focused on the sunlight filtering in through the glass wall and began to tell him my story.

"I loved a star who was afraid of the dark and wanted to be a bird instead. She loved the sun so I made her realize that the sun is a star. Then she told me I was a sun too..."

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_"__When I was younger my daddy called me his little star but stars only come out at night so what's the point? A bird maybe, so I could fly away from here." _

_ "__I love the sun."_

_"__But the sun is a star."_

_"__I think you're a sun too"_

_"__When I was sick, I learned one thing to be true. I love you sun."_


End file.
